


Tiller

by neveralarch



Category: Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-09
Updated: 2012-12-09
Packaged: 2017-11-20 17:54:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/588123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neveralarch/pseuds/neveralarch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The first thing Leela does when she gets into the Doctor's ship is try to make sure that he can't get her out again.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tiller

**Author's Note:**

> Written for merryghoul as part of the dw_femslash ficathon, and very kindly betaed by evilawyer!
> 
> (There's a bit of a stealth crossover here, but Leela's TV canon is all you need to know for the fic.)

The first thing Leela does when she gets into the Doctor's ship is try to make sure that he can't get her out again. She knows that machines work by pressing buttons and pulling levers, so she pulls the biggest lever she can see.

"Don't touch that!" shouts the Doctor, but it is too late - the Doctor's ship rumbles and shifts and they are in flight. Leela holds tight to the altar in the middle of the ship until the flight smoothes. She is grinning, because it is well to be on a journey with the cleverest man she's ever met. But when she looks over at the Doctor, he is frowning.

"She oughtn't have done that," mutters the Doctor.

"Who, me?" asks Leela.

"No, the TARDIS." Leela raises her eyebrows, and the Doctor's frown becomes a scowl. "The TARDIS is my ship. I feel sure that I mentioned that - you were probably too busy trying to kill people at the time."

The Doctor is probably annoyed because Leela forced her way onto the ship. It will pass, Leela is sure.

"What are you doing, old girl?" asks the Doctor. Leela thinks he is speaking to the ship, the TARDIS.

"The ship is flying," says Leela. "I pulled the lever."

"You pulled the lottery lever," says the Doctor. "That generates random numbers. Six five six, by the way." He leans back from the altar, pulling out his bag of babies. "Hm. She must like you."

"Good," says Leela, and the Doctor lets her take a candy and tells her about the TARDIS.

\---

Xoanon was a broken computer that controlled the world that Leela lived on. The Doctor tries to explain it with more words, but they mean the same thing. Leela is glad that they saved her people and her world, but she is also glad to leave that place behind her.

Now the Doctor shows Leela worlds that are controlled by men and women, or by plants, or by rocks wearing clothes, but not by broken computers. Some of the worlds are troubled, but at least they have created their own troubles.

Now Leela lives on a ship that is alive, animated by some creature that lives inside a machine and controls everything around her.

"Please do not break," Leela tells the TARDIS. The TARDIS hums, the slow, steady noise that means they are without a destination. The Doctor is taking a day to "explore the hat cavern," leaving Leela to herself.

Leela leans back against the TARDIS' wall and thinks.

The Sevateem have many stories, and all of them are true, or were true, or will be true.

One of the stories that was true is about a computer that falls in love with a human man. The computer's creator tells her that she must trick this man and steal his secrets, but the computer cannot bear to hurt the man. Instead she conceals her identity and sends letters to the man, messages go back and forth, and together they grow deeper in love.

If the computer's creator knew that she was using her time thus, he would think she was broken. But love makes the computer stronger, gives her something to dream of.

Perhaps Xoanon needed someone to love? No, Leela thinks, that is silly. Love does not solve everything. But perhaps Xoanon needed someone to talk to.

The Doctor always talks to the TARDIS, but he talks of mechanisms and things that are not working and asks questions that he does not want to be answered. That is surely not enough.

"I am here," says Leela, to the wall that supports her, "if you would like to talk. I will listen."

The TARDIS murmurs around her, and Leela closes her eyes and tries to understand.

\---

When Leela sleeps, that night and in the nights to come, a woman visits her dreams. It is pleasant, like welcoming a favored guest into her home, but she never sees her visitor's face. The woman is tall, with square shoulders and a strong build. Her dress is blue as the twilight sky, or as dark as the void.

"Who are you?" asks Leela, and the woman touches her on the shoulder and Leela wakes in her room in the TARDIS.

Dreams can mean nothing, or dreams can mean everything, and sometimes dreams are mostly nonsense but have a little truth in them all the same. Leela stares hard at the walls of her room, but she still does not know why the woman is visiting her.

\---

"Come on, old girl," says the Doctor, as the TARDIS shudders and shakes. He strokes the console, and the TARDIS eases, and the rest of their passage is smooth.

Leela combs her hair with her fingers as she thinks. She is missing something here, something the Doctor has mentioned before.

"We've landed!" The Doctor shoves on his hat. "Ready to explore?"

"The TARDIS is a woman?" asks Leela.

The Doctor is already half out the door. He turns with one foot in the air, and steps back toward her.

"Yes," he says, "and no. It's a metaphor. Or possibly anthropomorphism, I can't remember. Gallifropomorphism."

"I do not understand," says Leela, "but I think you are mocking me."

"Only a little," the Doctor agrees. "Why does it matter if the TARDIS is a woman?"

"I am ready to explore," announces Leela, and leads the way.

She touches the wall as she goes, and the TARDIS thrums beneath her hand.

The computer in the story was a woman, and she could make herself look real, look flesh and blood and warm. Leela thinks that part of the story was true and is true now.

\---

When Leela comes home to the TARDIS, she is tired and dirty. At least none of the blood is her own. The Doctor disappears down a corridor, and Leela opens the first door she sees and finds a washroom. She strips down, leaving her clothing on the floor, and steps into the box which will spray water on her when she pulls the levers.

The water pulses warm and soft against her face, and Leela scrubs the outside universe off of her body.

Today she had to save the Doctor's life more times than she can count, and the Doctor saved her life in turn. It is good - Leela would rather _do_ things than stay safe and quiet and bored - but it is tiring. She leans through the spray of water, until her forehead rests against the wall of the box. The wall gives to her, a little, as if it were made of something living, and Leela closes her eyes and breathes.

The water shuts off.

Leela drips, for a moment, and then she reaches out with her eyes still closed and fumbles for the door of the box. When she opens her eyes and steps back out into the washroom, she can see that her clothes are gone. There is a towel hanging up for her instead.

"Thank you," she says. The door out of the washroom now leads to Leela's bedroom, and Leela thanks the TARDIS for that as well before she falls asleep, skin feeling clean and fresh between the sheets, towel forgotten on the floor.

\---

The woman's face is clearer, now that Leela knows who she is. Her mouth is full and smiling, and her eyes are dark and warm.

"I thank you for your hospitality," says Leela, formally, and the woman grins and bows. She is wearing a bright blue dress tonight, with a long skirt that brushes against itself as she moves. It makes Leela more aware of the fact that she is naked in this dream. She is not ashamed, and she does not move to cover herself. She is proud of her body. But Leela notices the way the woman's eyes drift across Leela's bare breasts and stomach, and warm pleased awareness curls tight within her.

"The Doctor says you like me," says Leela, and the woman nods. "Why?"

The woman shrugs, draws closer. She does not walk, does not float, she just _moves_ from one place to the next. Leela does not find it as strange as she once would have.

The woman looks into Leela's eyes, and then touches her ear with careful fingers as her other hand reaches down and tangles with Leela's own hand. The woman's hands are smaller than Leela's, and soft where Leela's hands are rough with calluses. The woman touches Leela's ear again, and Leela reaches up and catches that hand with hers as well.

"I listen to you?" Leela frowns. "I cannot be the first to do that."

The woman shakes her head, and leans up to kiss Leela on the cheek. Leela's face tingles as the woman leans back away.

"Then I am also not the first person you have liked," decides Leela, and the woman grins as she shakes her head this time. The woman leans up again, and now Leela leans down, and their mouths meet.

There's a shock to it, like when Leela was in the Tesh's fortress and found some broken wires that tried to sting her. But the shock now is lighter, not painful, just-

The woman's hands frame Leela's hips as she breaks the kiss, and she looks like she would like to ask a question.

"It is hard to understand you when you will not speak," says Leela. "I do not know what that look means."

The woman smiles, and opens her mouth, but all Leela hears is the creak and roar of the TARDIS in flight.

"Then," decides Leela, "you will have to show me what you want."

The woman's smile grows sly, and she winks at Leela as her soft hands trail down Leela's body.

\---

The story of the computer that loved a man is not a happy one. In the end, the love of a computer is not enough for the man. He has another love, a human love. When his human love rejects him, the man goes mad, and kills the computer, taking her power. Leela cannot remember how he is stopped, in the end - it is a complicated story. But she never liked how it went for the computer, this story that was.

Leela hopes that her own story will end better for the TARDIS. Not just hopes. She will make sure of it.

(Leela would not think to make hopes for the TARDIS' story - Leela is only a small part in that grand tale, so she will control her own story, the story that is now, and let the TARDIS worry about what was and what will be.)

\---

The Doctor is hiding somewhere again, working or sleeping or playing with his tools. Leela does not care. Here, in the console room, she is alone with the TARDIS.

She puts her hands on the console, and feels the TARDIS come alive underneath her.

"You are so beautiful," says Leela. The TARDIS vibrates modestly.

"Show me what you want," says Leela. "Take me somewhere."

She watches as the TARDIS' controls move under her own direction, and the vibrations become louder and greater and better until the TARDIS is roaring her pleasure.

The Doctor bursts into the room, then, vest half-buttoned and scarf tangled between his legs.

"What's going on? What do you think you're doing?" he demands, but Leela is too busy laughing to answer him. She reaches out for a lever that the TARDIS is angling toward her.

"Don't touch that!" shouts the Doctor, but it is far and away too late.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Genius Loci (The Evidence of Things Unseen Remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1024646) by [AstroGirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstroGirl/pseuds/AstroGirl)




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